


The Last Mission

by InkFire_Scribe



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: F/M, Grief, Inspired by..., Loss, Nobility, POV Sam Yao, S1M22, Sacrifice, Sam's a perfect baby boy and I love him, Season 1, because, finale, if you disagree, you can fight me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 13:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20154112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkFire_Scribe/pseuds/InkFire_Scribe
Summary: Sam doesn't know how to handle it when he gets news that there's a mob... a horde... an ARMY of zombs heading toward Abel. If someone doesn't do something, everyone he knows and loves is going to die. The world might have ended already, but he's not ready for this part of it to end.





	1. Volunteer

Tension was thick in the air of the comms shack. Like the feeling before a storm breaks, only more concentrated. Runner 4’s voice crackled through the speakers, getting louder and softer and louder again as Janine cursed under her breath and tried to adjust the bent and wobbly antenna to boost the signal as much as she could. 

“Do you read me, Abel Township? Sam, please say something!”

“I… I read you, Jody.” Under his olive complexion, Abel’s Number One Communications Officer (as proudly proclaimed by the mug on his cluttered desk) felt clammy, cold, and pasty white. Like his blood had turned to rapidly-cooling oatmeal - which would also explain the crawling sensation under his skin. 

“I can get up in a tree once I hit the woods, but they’re heading right for you. Do we even have enough runners to distract this mob?” Runner 4 sounded like she was falling into a panic, and Janine leapt for the mic, only to swear in three languages as releasing the antenna caused an explosion of static from the speakers. Hastily, she grabbed the antenna again, her expression as dark and ominous as a thunderhead. 

“Sam, who do we have available? We need them all out there right now.” 

A whimper was clawing at the inside of his throat, but he swallowed it with difficulty. “Janine… we only have three runners left. 4 is already out there. We lost 10 last week. 6 and 7 are both down with food poisoning. 8 is out at the airfield for recon - she left yesterday. We have Runner 3 recovering from that twisted ankle, but they’d be willing if you asked and…” His gaze flicked to the corner, and there she was. As usual. Tightly controlled, tense, and looking back at him with the sort of worry that he wished he never had to see on her face. “Runner 5.” 

There was a wild look on Janine’s face as she snapped around, the antenna wobbling dangerously in her clenched fist. “Runner 5, we need you out there. If someone doesn’t distract that mob, we’re all going to die.” 

Sam was already shaking his head, panic rising in his chest, making it hard to breathe, hard to think. “You can’t send her out there, Janine. That’s suicide.” 

“We’ve got no choice,” snapped the woman, scowling fiercely. “It’s either that or sacrifice the entire township to that army. You heard Jody - that’s  _ 300 zombs _ out there. Our fences won’t stand up to that.” 

“There has to be another way-” squeaked Sam desperately. This couldn’t be the only option. This couldn’t be the way things fell apart. He was sure that without Runner 5, things  _ would _ fall apart. 

“There is no other way. Runner 5, get out there.” Janine glared at the runner in the corner, and for a moment, there was silence, broken only by sputtering static. 

Runner 5 turned her head and looked squarely at Sam, then signed with both hands, slowly and deliberately. He wasn’t as good with Sign Language as some of the others, but he knew enough to catch the gist of it. 

“Oh, God...”

“What did she say?” demanded Janine, her voice high with tension. 

Sam couldn’t tear his eyes away from Runner 5. Her eyes, so compassionate, so kind, and now so serious. He watched as she reached up and pulled her headset off, offering it to Sam. 

“She… she’s asking for a suicide pill. In case they catch her.” Sam could barely get the words out past the hot lump in his throat. His voice caught on the last two words, breaking as tears pricked at the backs of his eyes. Janine had no patience for this emotional moment, and in a lot of ways, Sam couldn’t blame her. She had a township to save.

“Well, get her one. Get Dr. Myers in here and make it happen.” She gestured angrily, clearly furious at being tethered to her own jerry-rigged creation. “NOW, Sam.”

“Does anyone have a plan yet?” Runner 4 was starting to pant hard, but her labeled blip on the radar screen showed she was still moving at a steady pace. 

With shaking hands, Sam accepted Runner 5’s headset, then touched the button to turn on his mic. “We’re sending backup with a noisemaker. Head for cover quick as you can, Jody.” 

“What? You want me to hide while someone else distracts this wall of shamblers? Sam, that’s mad. Send me a noisemaker. I’ll help.” She sounded terrified and spent, but the fact that she was volunteering made it feel like Sam’s heart was taking up too much space in his chest. This was his township. His home. His family. He didn’t want any of them to die. Runner 5 was shaking her head and signing quickly - he didn’t catch all of it, but he understood enough.

“No, Jody. You head for cover. Runner 5 has a plan, and you’re already tired. Rest up, then come back in once the coast is clear. Got that?” 

“But Sam-”

“No buts, Jody. Just do it.” He turned quickly. Yes. Runner 5 was still there. She had a handful of his shirt and all in a moment, had dragged him closer for a hard, desperate kiss. Then she whirled, dashed for the door, and was gone. Sam watched in a daze as she sprinted across the quad to the Doc’s, and came back out a handful of seconds later, stuffing something into her pocket. 

“Silence the sirens,” croaked Sam, “and raise the gates.” The gate rattled as it opened, but the usual blaring alarm was for once absent. Runner 5 pelted through the gap and into the open. The noisemaker stuffed in her waistband was already beeping loudly, and he heard the sound recede as Runner 5 disappeared. 

“What’s going on?” Dr. Maxine Myers burst into the shack, her hair wild and her expression pinched. “Runner 5 just stole a cyanide capsule and nearly scared me to death.” Then she spotted the headset in Sam’s hand, hanging limply there as though still waiting for its proper owner. 

It was oddly heavy, hanging from his fingers like a weirdly-shaped Christmas ornament. His lips burned where she’d kissed him. That had been a goodbye if ever there was one. And everyone knew what it meant for a runner to give up their headset. 

“You sent her on a suicide mission,” whispered Maxine. 

“We didn’t have a choice.” Janine looked like a trapped wildcat, but Sam could see the fear in her eyes. Fear for her family. Fear for the runner she’d just sent to her death. 

“It’s… it’s Alice, all over again.” Sam felt like he was drowning, or maybe like he was being buried. Buried in grief and despair. “You’ve sent her to do something impossible, and she’s never coming back, unless she’s already gone grey and trying to kill us.”

“Sam? Can you hear me? I’ve gotten up a tree and the mob is gathered below me. A lot of them have stopped here, but there are still at least 200 heading for Abel.” 

“I hear you.” Sam was surprised by the roughness of his own voice, but maybe he shouldn’t have been. There was nothing he could do. He was helpless, just like he’d been before. “Just… just stay safe, Jody. There’s nothing more we can do.” 

His cameras were down, but he could see her on the radar. A blip moving faster than any of the others, skirting the horde. They were drawing off, following her. The blip doubled back, as though she were herding them, circling the set that had peeled off after her. More separated from the horde when she passed near them, double the size of the group following her. 50 of them at least. She did it again, so fast he could hardly believe it. 70. 80. Almost a hundred zombs. She led them west, away from Abel, away from her family. 

“Oh, God. I see her. It’s Runner 5. She’s got the noisemaker. She’s drawing them off. She’s dodging them like Neo in the Matrix. She’s tearing around them.” Jody sounded like she was torn between envy and tears. “She’s leading them away, Sam. She did it. You’ve only got a hundred left. You can handle them.”

“She won’t suffer.” That was Maxine, speaking in the hushed voice of a woman standing at a friend’s deathbed. “That pill she took has enough poison in it to lay out a camel. If they catch her, all she has to do is bite down on it.”

Blip. Blip. Blip.

Runner 5’s blip on the radar ran right off the edge of the map. Her huge grey fanbase followed her, dropping off the radar a dozen at a time as they shambled forward. 

“She’s gone.” 

Janine cautiously released the antenna, then backed away when nothing happened. The static hissed through the speakers, but didn’t threaten to bust their eardrums again. “We need to get extra sentries up on the towers, and as much firepower as we can spare for it. We can’t let this mob through the fence.” 

Because… life went on. Even without Runner 5. 

Sam slumped in his chair and closed his eyes. He was an engineering student, not a soldier. He couldn’t deal with this anymore. He couldn’t lose any more friends. Especially not friends like Runner 5. He felt like he was breaking apart inside. He didn’t even complain when Janine pushed him and his wheely chair aside and took over his mic, calling the township to alert. 

More things happened. Gunshots pounded through his headset. Jody occasionally put in falsely cheerful comments. Sam didn’t listen to any of them. He barely noticed the world kept spinning, even as the rest of the township celebrated the horde’s defeat. They were safe. Jody came back in and was hailed as a hero. 

Sam waited. He stared at the radar screen and waited. He refused snacks. Drinks. Someone made cake. He didn’t want any of it. He stared at the radar screen, like a knight keeping his vigil, not saying a word. Just… waiting. 

Night fell. Things grew quiet. Janine and the Doc both tried to persuade him to go to bed. He refused, just shaking his head. If she could sacrifice herself, he could watch for her to come back. At least until dawn. If she didn’t come back by then… well… she would never come back at all. But at least he would have waited. 

Zombs wandered in and out of sight in pairs or alone. Some clumps wandered the edges of his radar. At some point, Janine had fixed some of their cameras. He watched the screens, everything painted an eerie green in the darkness. 


	2. Inconceivable

Time lost all meaning. Everything was a blur of exhaustion and loss. He barely recognized what he was looking at anymore. Until…

Blip.

Blip blip.

Sam looked at the radar screen. Two blips, both moving slowly. No… one blip. The second one disappeared when it stopped moving. The first one started moving again, weaving toward Abel. He could almost imagine the actual person behind that blip, staggering through the darkness. Injured? Sick? Undead? It was impossible to tell. 

It was moving steadily toward Abel, though, and that suggested either it was purposeful or just a cruel trick of the world. He checked the cameras, just in case. Movement, indistinct in the ambient light of false dawn. Slowly, as though swimming up from the cold depths of a lake, Sam’s mind began to clear, and he watched more closely. 

Yes, the movement was vague, but it was obviously consistent. He didn’t notice any lurching, other than the weaving from side to side, which exhaustion might account for. His nerves hummed like a plucked harp string. Could it be? Could it really be? 

He hastily selected a camera and told it to zoom in a little on the place where the figure would come on-screen if they continued in that direction. Nothing happened, frowning, he zoomed out, only to find the figure had come from a slightly different direction. All limbs intact, outline whole - no missing bodyparts as far as he could tell. And though it stumbled and staggered crazily from side to side, the stride was even. It was a familiar stride, even. 

“There’s… no way.” 

He’d hoped. He’d prayed. But he hadn’t really believed. Discarding his headset as though it were a useless toupe, he bolted from the comms shack and sprinted for the gates, barely aware of the screaming cramps in his legs from sitting still for so many hours. The sentries were calling down to him in confusion but he wasn’t listening and even if he had been, there was no way he would have heard them over the pounding of his own heart as he hit the chain link fence near the gate, staring into the darkness. 

Yes. There it was. A figure weaving drunkenly across the open field toward the gate, tripping over motionless zombie corpses or staggering around them. The sentries had spotted it, too, and watched, both of them with hands on their weapons. Neither of them would fire, not unless it became absolutely necessary. 

“It’s her.” Sam’s voice was hardly more than a strangled croak as he watched the stumbling figure come closer. “It’s Runner 5.” 

There was the smear of white from the band she wore in honor of Runner 10. There was the heavy flapping of her hair against her back. There was the faint flash of the reflector strips on her shoes. She reached the gates at a stumbling jog and actually hit them, gasping for breath and clutching at the metal to keep herself upright. She was pale as death, covered in sweat, but alive. Gloriously, amazingly, unbelievably alive. 

“Raise the gates.” Sam’s voice was too thin, too squeaky to carry. He rushed to the gates himself, as if he might be able to force them open. “Raise the gates!” he shouted, louder this time. Stronger. 

The sentries looked at one another across the top of the gate, then down at Sam. “It’s locked for the night, Sam. You know that.” 

“And you can see we have a runner out there!” Sam’s eyes stung and his vision began to swim, but he rubbed the tears away. “We have to open the gates now, before more zombs come!” When they continued to look uncertain, Sam swallowed a scream of frustration. Loud noises didn’t help keep the zombs away. 

“If you don’t open those gates right now-” 

“Mr. Yao.” Janine looked hagard, but she approached at a brisk jog, her housecoat flapping about her. It made her look a bit like a mix between an anime antagonist and a kid in a ghost costume. “What are you doing?” 

“Runner 5 came back. Tell them to open the gates so we can bring her in!” Sam knew he sounded hysterical. He didn’t really care. His runner was alive and he wasn’t going to watch her get eaten right outside their gates because of a stupid rule, even if it was a rule that had probably kept them all alive for months. 

Janine stared, first at Sam, then at Runner 5, who was braced against the gates and looked barely conscious. She’d not taken charge of the township by letting herself be gobsmacked by every unexpected thing, though. 

“Unlock the gates,” she snapped. “Runner 5, undress. We need to check you for bites.” 

“In front of the sentries?!” yelped Sam, who was amazed that he even had the energy to be shocked. 

“Safety before modesty, Mr. Yao. I have a township to think about.” Even as Janine spoke, Runner 5 was peeling off her sweaty running gear. By the time the gates were unlocked, Runner 5 had fallen over and was sitting in the dirt, as bare as the day she’d been born. Sam couldn’t bring himself to look directly at her (that would be an invasion of privacy!) but he was relieved when Janine said she didn’t have any obvious bites and wasn’t coughing or running a fever. The rattle of the gates opening nearly drowned Janine out. 

“Quarantine for you, my girl, and plenty of sleep. Maxine would have my hide if I didn’t insist on that. Sam, quit your dithering and help me get our runner to the quarantine shed, then fetch Doc. I don’t care if she’s dead asleep, get her out here ten minutes ago.” 

Together, the two of them basically carried the spent runner through the township. Sam could only be deeply grateful there was almost no one awake to see his runner in her birthday suit. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty new to the ZR fandom, but (like pretty much everyone else) I got hooked at _A Voice In The Dark_ and never looked back. This piece was inspired by the finale of Season 1, but I made an effort to make this approachable, whether you've run 2 missions or 200. 
> 
> If people are interested, I might be convinced to write a third chapter, but I'd probably need a bit more inspiration. ;)


	3. Post-Birthday Suit Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By request, here's a third chapter. :)

There is an art form to sleeping wherever the heck you want. Dr. Myers had it down pat - at her desk, in the kitchen, on the couch, in a chair, leaning against the fence. There were some weeks when things were so crazy that you could come around any corner and there she would be, propped against the wall or sitting against a door or curled under a table. Sam tried to make a habit out of waking her and telling her to go to bed, but it wasn’t always easy to remember habits through the fog of exhaustion. 

Today, though. Today, it was his turn. In the rec room, the old plastic fold-out chairs they used were sturdy, but not very comfortable unless you tipped them back on two legs. And if you had your shoulders against the wall for stability, you were golden. You know… until Simon decided to give you a nudge and the whole thing went down like a house of cards with you in the tangle. 

Sam groaned, rubbing his back as he tried to disentangle himself from the chair. “Simon, next time you’re on a run I’m steering you right through Jody’s zombie-infested craft shop.” 

“Good. I could use more blue yarn.” Jody was always ready with a quip, but Sam’s startlement had him on his feet in a heartbeat. 

“Jody! You’re alive!” When had she come back? Had it been last night? He couldn’t remember. She looked tired, but unhurt, and even mustered a grin for him over her mug of weak coffee. (Janine insisted on rationing the coffee, and honestly Sam couldn’t blame her. If they ran out, all hell would break loose.) 

“Aye, I’m alive, thanks to you and Runner 5. It got pretty hairy last night.” 

“Runner 5!” Sam felt his voice break and for once, didn’t care when Simon started to laugh at him. Forcing heavy legs into motion, Sam bolted for the door, then next door to Doc’s office. “Did she get bit?” he shouted, a little unnecessarily, since Dr. Myers was right in front of him at her desk. “Is she okay? Is she sick?” 

Maxine gave him an unimpressed look, though the corner of her mouth was twitching upward slightly, as though she were fighting off a smile. “There’s no need to shout, Sam. And no, it doesn’t look like she’d been bit. It’s been nearly 12 hours now, and there’s no sign that she’s infected.” Sam let out a whoop, punching the air and accidentally clipping the light fixture. His hand stung and the fixture swung crazily from side to side as Maxine watched him with sardonic amusement. 

“That means she can come out now? I can let her out of the quarantine shed?” Sam nursed his hand, but hardly noticed the pain as he grinned hopefully at the doctor, who rolled her eyes and pointed to a bundle on the counter. 

“Take her some clothes. Her running gear was left out all night, and it’s still in with the wash.”

Sam thought for a moment that his face was about to burst into flame. Right. She’d undressed last night. She was… naked. And he’d seen her without any clothes on. 

“Right,” he mumbled, taking the clothes. Sports bra, underpants, shorts, and a green tee shirt with some bleach spots on it. Not her usual stuff, but better than nothing. 

Or was it? 

Sam shook his head. If he wanted to expire from embarrassment, this would be a good way to do it. 

So, trying hard not to think too much about… well, anything, Sam made his way to the south fence and the quarantine shed. 

“Um… Runner 5? Are you awake in there? Dr. Myers says you can come out now and… and I’ve got some clothes for you. I’m sorry about last night. You know, Janine’s sort of uptight about that kind of thing but we had to make sure. And, well, hey! You made it. That was… really some run last night. I don’t know how you did it. I don’t think anyone but you could have done it. Not even Runner 8, and she’s scary tough. But I’m… well, I’m glad you’re back. I don’t think… losing another runner… especially you… I don’t think I could have done that.” He paused, really only to take a breath before rambling some more, but Runner 5’s quiet knock let him know that she was listening. Blushing furiously, he unbolted the door and shoved the clothes through as small a gap as he could. “Here. I brought these for you.” 

Runner 5 took them, but she let her hand touch his. He knew her well enough to know that wasn’t on accident. She had touched him. She was letting him know that she was okay. Sam’s heart nearly burst. 

After a bit of shuffling and one brief bang as she fell against the wall, which worried Sam a lot, Runner 5 came out, fully dressed. She looked pretty awful, still haggard and pale from the night’s desperate run. But she was  _ alive _ , and that was all that mattered to Sam. He grinned helplessly down at her. 

“I’m… glad you’re back.” 

_ You told me to come home. _ Her signs were a little sluggish, but a smile touched her lips. Then she had a handful of his shirt and was pulling him down and into the second most startling kiss of his life. 

“Oh… right. That… happened.” He gripped her shoulders to keep himself upright, and stared at her as he wondered what that meant. 

She reached up and smacked his head gently, as if she could read his mind. Or maybe like she was saying “of course it happened you doof.” 

Things happened after that. There was food. Lots of sleep. Leftover cake. More kisses. And a cute shy smile on 5’s face as she fell asleep, holding his hand. Sam promised himself he’d never let go. 


End file.
